His family wouldn’t be mourning him, and probably setting themselves up for a frightening visit the more they blab to news outlets about “suspicious circumstances.”
God. Don’t they get it?
It’s a domino effect that can only end in tragedy. One that never should’ve been kicked off in the first place.
Durham’s been getting more reckless. More ruthless. More angry.
Or maybe I’m just going soft all of a sudden, now that I’m facing an infusion of mommy hormones and the prospect of carrying a child to term when I know just how horrible the world it’ll be born into is.
Sigh.
I rest a hand over my stomach as I stand just inside the penthouse’s elevator, holding the doors open with my body and staring at Oliver’s door.
On the other side of it, destiny awaits.
A man who says he...
...he actually feels things for me.
Even after five freaking years, I don’t know how to handle that.
Maybe we don’t always see eye to eye.
We’ve had ripping arguments over the years about what to do with Galentron and our miserable careers, the best way to take them down from inside, only to flop back into ignoring it under the weight of our own helplessness.
Every scenario we wargamed in our heads winds up with someone dead.
Still, I’m in favor of burning it all to the ground, consequences be damned.
He wants to go the more legal route, using the reams of evidence he has access to in his position.
As if the Feds will do a damned thing when they’re the ones paying for this crap.
When I’d first seduced him on that quiet sunny evening a long time ago, I was a dreamer.
I’d somehow thought that, together, we’d be unstoppable.
We could do so much more joining forces than we ever could apart.
The problem was, we could never agree on what to do.
Or maybe we were afraid to actually take action.
Talk is cheap when you’re staring at a fire-breathing dragon with nearly a trillion dollars in assets, an international footprint, and legions of deadly agents.
Who could blame us for being afraid to face the music?
But even so, Oliver always promised to sort things out.
Always promised he’d make things right, somehow.
Always promised he’d keep me safe, even though we both knew I didn’t need it.
I never came to him looking for a hero or protector. It was the principle of the thing.
And he always did the same thing.
Just asked me to give him time.
I wish I still had time to give.
But I don’t now. The clock’s running out.
Not with the ultrasound in my purse, and the words on my lips, and the knowledge that once I tell him I plan to keep the baby...
Nothing will ever be the same.
I’m afraid of losing him, I realize.
That’s new for me.
Caring at all.
People come and go, flitting in and out of my life, without leaving an impression. Just like my parents and any other family I had. Just grey placeholders, names and shapes that don’t mean anything to me, and if I ever meant anything to them, I’ll never know it.
I’ve never cared about anyone enough to want to hold on to them.
Until now.
Goddammit, Fuchsia Delaney may be a lot of things, but she isn’t a coward.
And I’m going to do this head-on, one way or another.
Lifting my chin, I stride forward and knock on his door.
It’s a habit I can’t break.
He gave me a key.
I tell myself I’ll use it every time I deposit myself on his doorstep like a stray cat, after a deployment. I never even go to my dingy little Galentron-owned apartment, preferring the sleek, modernist style of Oliver’s place, the fine linen furniture, the tasteful wooden artwork.
But I think it’s part of reminding myself this isn’t a defined thing, and I don’t live here, but that might be about to change, one way or the other.
Oliver answers in seconds, pulling the door open, preoccupied as he pulls off oven mitts from those big bulky hands that have choked out insurgents. Yet he uses them to bake now, instead of hiring a chef like any other man of his wealth and stature.
Screw it, I smile. It’s the little things like that keeping him humble.
Human.
Endearing.
And he’s so very human then as he starts to reach for me—then stops.
He’s got this freaky perception, this way of knowing me that I find so disconcerting, telling him without a word off my tongue that something’s wrong.
Or is it actually very, very right?
I don’t know yet.
I’ll tell you when this conversation’s over.
His hands fall to his sides, slowly turning into fists.
“Fuchsia...what happened?” Then his brows draw together. “Did Durham—”
It’s just a testament to our line of work that he immediately assumes Durham hurt me somehow, and there’s a decent chance he wouldn’t be wrong.
But before he can work himself up into a ragey lather with nowhere for that anger to go, I bite the bullet.
“I’m pregnant,” I blurt out. “And I’m keeping it.”
Right there. Boom.
No bones about it. No deflections. No preamble.
It’s practically an ultimatum.
No coincidence I’m frozen on the threshold to his place, that weird barrier between in and out separating us from each other. Threatening to define what this thing we’ve shared forever is or isn’t.
Because I can’t stand to be in his space if that info means he’s going to shut me right back out.
I wait for the inevitable Are you sure it’s mine? then denial, resignation, fatalism.
Instead, he smiles.
I blink. Several times just to make sure I’m not hallucinating.
Oliver Major gives me the biggest, goofiest lopsided grin I’ve ever seen, and this man is twelve years older than I am and has no right to be smiling like that with the news I just dropped on his head.
What. Is. Going. On?
He’s still wearing it. Like a little boy who just got everything he wants for Christmas, his eyes light up as he stares at me breathlessly.
“You—you are? You—we are?”
It’s his we that almost breaks me.
I’m trying to be stoic and cold, but when he says that...
My eyes burn, my lips tremble, my throat closes, and I just nod, biting back a whimper in the back of my throat.
And he comes sweeping out into the hallway to wrap me up in the safe harbor of those large, strong, deliciously inked arms, throwing me against him and dragging me back into the light-filled spaces of his condo.
Dragging me into his world, with a firmness that says he wants to keep me there no matter how I might try to banish myself to the shadows.
“God, Fuchsia,” he growls out, burying his face in my shoulder. “We’re...we’re gonna have a baby. A kid.”
I try to hide, pressing my face into his chest so no one has to see the wet tracks running down my cheeks in warm trails.
“Yeah,” I whisper. “Seems like we are.”
“Shit. I never thought I could ask you for anything like that, never, I...are you upset, woman? We weren’t careful enough, we weren’t—”
“No.” I shake my head firmly, laying my hand on his chest, just over his heart. “I never even thought I could do something like this, but now? I want it. I want it, I want this, I want...”